Ailing firms are great business  for some

Barclay Knapps $10m pay-off shows how you can profit from going bust. By Paul Durman and Lucinda Kemeny

THEY used to call Barclay Knapp the cable king. Rarely can a king have so misgoverned his realm.

As chief executive, Knapp built NTL into Britain’s largest cable television and telephony group through expensive acquisitions. His love of deal- making, a cavalier attitude to debt and incorrigible optimism encouraged him to create a loss-making business with a staggering £12 billion of borrowings. He continued to whistle a happy tune about how well the company was performing even as it was heading for a financial crash.

NTL collapsed into bankruptcy last year, wiping out its shareholders’ investment.

Customers suffered, too. The mish-mash of cable networks it had acquired was poorly integrated, and NTL became notorious for its abysmal customer service, which inspired the NTHellworld.com website.

A suitable case for ignominious dismissal, one might think. Not a bit of it. Knapp survived to steer NTL through its financial restructuring, and was paid